Annabel Monaghan’s Top Picks for 2024 Summer Beach Reads

The following is by bestselling romance novelist Annabel Monaghan, who shares her love of summer and her favorite beach reads of 2024. All rights reserved; copyright 2024.

When I was a teenager, summer was the time to sink your toes in the sand and read books that wouldn’t appear on any school reading list. Authors like Danielle Steel, Sidney Sheldon, and Jackie Collins were my people, and my friends and I would pass their books around like candy. In 1985, I read a copy of The Thorn Birds that was so well-read it was missing chapters.

It is the great joy of my life that I grew up to be a writer of summer romances. I love writing about people falling in love in the summertime when all of the senses are heightened and the days are so long. There’s something about the sensations of summer that puts me right back in those favorite books—the feel of hot sand underfoot, the white noise of rolling waves, summer music, and salt-dried skin.

My latest novel, aptly named Summer Romance, tells the story of Ali Morris, a professional organizer whose life and home are a total mess. She’s a recently separated mother of three who is grieving her mom. She decides to get unstuck by having a summer romance with an adorable guy who’s just in town for a little while.

This summer has been particularly exciting for me, partly because of my new book release and partly because of the amazing books that have come out. It feels like a great vintage year for novels. Here are some of the books I loved the most this summer and can’t stop thinking about.

Seven Summer Weekends by Jane L. Rosen

Addison Irwin blows up her career faster than you can say “Zoom disaster” but then discovers she’s inherited a Fire Island beach house from a distant aunt. That beach house comes with a string of houseguests and a moody but super-handsome neighbor. It’s just what you’ve come to expect from Rosen–a compulsively readable, totally satisfying, heart-tugging romance.

Seven Summer Weekends by Jane L. Rosen ($19; Berkley) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

Seven Summers by Paige Toon

This is not a book I recommend reading in public. The gasping and ugly crying will invite a lot of unwanted attention. Liv and Finn come together again and again for seven summers on the Cornish coastline, bound by love and lust and tragedy. It is unbearably romantic, and the writing is so beautiful and emotionally resonant that you will gladly let her reach into your heart and pull it right out.

Seven Summers by Paige Toon ($18; G.P. Putnam’s Sons) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

Rules for Second Chances by Maggie North

This is the book I’ve been talking about all summer. It’s North’s debut, a love story between a married couple–a second chance romance with the person who’s already there. After being mistaken as a server at her own birthday party, Liz needs to step up as a main character in her life to reclaim her marriage, and she does so by joining an improv comedy class. It’s brilliant, unexpected, and I loved it.

Rules for Second Chances by Maggie North ($18; St. Martin’s Griffin) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

Summer Fridays by Suzanne Rindell

This one really took me by surprise. It’s the story of an engaged twentysomething woman who’s rethinking everything about the life she’s planned for herself. In doing so, she forms a connection with someone new and a friendship develops over a string of Friday afternoons in New York. The writing is atmospheric and the budding romance feels so authentic that I felt it deep in my heart.

Summer Fridays by Suzanne Rindell ($18; Dutton) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

Cole and Laila are Just Friends by Bethany Turner

Friends to lovers? Sign me up. Anything written by Bethany Turner? Sign me up every day. This one is her latest, the story of Cole and Laila, lifelong best friends in a crisis who spend a week in New York together before they have to part ways. Part love story to New York City, part homage to the genre, it’s laugh-out-loud funny and deeply romantic.

Cole and Laila are Just Friends by Bethany Turner ($17.99; Thomas Nelson) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

Just One Taste by Lizzy Dent

I’m a Lizzy Dent superfan, so when I heard her latest was going to take us on a food tour of Italy, I almost passed out. This one follows Olive, who inherits her father’s failing restaurant, and Leo, her father’s sous-chef, on a journey from Sicily to Tuscany to Liguria to gather recipes and fall in love. It’s packed with funny, foody wonderfulness.

Just One Taste by Lizzy Dent ($19; G.P. Putnam’s Sons) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

Morbidly Yours by Ivy Fairbanks

Talk about a romance you haven’t read before–a shy, demisexual Irish mortician has to marry in order to keep his family business. Lucky for him, a Texan widow has just relocated to Ireland for work and moves in next door. The development of the relationship is emotionally perfect, and the chemistry is off the charts. It’s a funny, sexy, and completely heartwarming story.

Morbidly Yours by Ivy Fairbanks ($19; G.P. Putnam’s Sons) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

Anna Bright is Hiding Something by Susie Orman Schnall

I swear I don’t read romance exclusively, and to prove it, here’s a deliciously suspenseful novel about high tech corporate fraud and the woman who will stop at nothing for success. The IPO is imminent and a savvy journalist is about to expose a billion dollar lie. It’s timely, gripping, and meticulously researched.

Anna Bright is Hiding Something by Susie Orman Schnall ($17.95; Spark Press) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

Summer Romance by Annabel Monaghan ($19; G.P. Putnam’s Sons) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

Related: The 60+ Best Summer Beach Reads of 2024

Source: Annabel Monaghan, various publishers